Screen Presence

What is your “Screen Presence”? Sounds like you’re applying for a part in a Hollywood movie

doesn’t it? With today’s technology “Screen Presence” is how your Resume presents your

qualifications on that little seventeen to nineteen inch LCD screen!

I’ve been working in the Workforce Development arena for almost 18 years. Resumes on pastel

colored paper, resumes with graphics, resumes crunched down to 9pt with ¼ inch margins to

make it fit on one page have crossed my desk. I recently reviewed a resume over 15 pages

long, and now we have the latest resume version the “Presentation Resume”.

My position allows me to meet with employers on a daily basis and during these meetings I

almost always ask the following question, “What information do you want presented on a

resume?” A high percentage of the employers indicate they want a resume that quickly tells

them what skills and qualifications an individual has to offer.

Ruth Markham (Technical Writer), Blair Forlaw (Advisor) and I (Project Developer) from

BounceBackSTL recently introduced a new and unique way of presenting resumes quickly and

effectively to CIO’s and hiring authorities throughout the St Louis metro area the “Talent

Portfolio”. The latest iteration encompasses over 80 resumes and the feedback from

employers groups so far as been phenomenal.

We asked the membership from the BounceBackSTL Networking Group to provide us a copy of

their resume for inclusion in our Portfolio. As we developed this project I presented draft

versions of the Portfolio to various employer groups to obtain feedback of the best resume

formats for the Portfolio. Feedback during this design process was extremely helpful and

presented us with a very unique problem. How to present resumes which tell the unique story

of the jobseeker but in an easy to review format the employers are asking for.

Most employers tell us they have less than 3 minutes to review a resume to determine if the

candidate skills meet their job qualifications (and I’m being very generous with the 3 minute

limitation). One employer I met with simply stated upon review of our Portfolio design…”Your

presentation must state clearly the individual’s qualifications on the opening resume screen for the

position I’m trying to fill. I’m not going to scroll left or right, up or down, go to page 2 or page 15 to

determine if this person meets my job qualifications. If the resume cannot tell me what I need on that

opening screen I’m moving to the next resume!” Another employer stated, “This version of their

resume is not meant to be the job seekers final “Interview” resume just a version that I can quickly

review to insure the qualifications of the job seeker meets my needs. When I find someone that I

want to meet with, I usually request they bring an updated version of their resume to our meeting for

my final review”.

I presented our idea of this “Presentation Resume” to another Networking Group. It met with

several quips and quotes about not telling the whole story of the individual’s qualifications and

employers wanting more information in a traditional format. I asked this group of 5 “experts”

on “resume preparation” to help me find a qualified Project Manager out of our Portfolio. The

Portfolio at the time contained about 50 resume drafts, and I allowed them 15 minutes to

review the resumes to find one qualified individual. The first resume was reviewed fairly

thoroughly and after about 5 minutes I reminded them that they had 10 minutes left and 49

more resumes to review. The group started scanning only the information on the opening

screen of the remaining resumes. After several minutes and about 15 or 20 resumes reviewed, I

asked them, “What are you doing?” They indicated they were scanning the first page of the

resume as quickly as possible to determine if the individual meets the job qualifications or not. I

then saw a light come on in their eyes! If they have only enough time to preview the opening

resume screen during my little test, how much of the resume is the employer going to review

during their 3 minutes with the resume? They all conceded to the realization we were on track

with our version of the “Presentation Resume”.

Starting out with over 100 resumes Ruth and I had to quickly develop a “Presentation Resume”

format for our Portfolio. We did not have the time to revise each resume so we developed a

basic template. Our design was simple. Instead of an Objective Statement we wanted to

simply state what position the candidate was seeking. (i.e. Project Manager)

“Summary of Qualifications” would follow in a bullet format, paragraph format, or any format

the candidate chose to provide us. At this point the employer has determined if they want to

continue to review the rest of the resume or move on to the next resume. Any further

information provided regardless of the format (chronological, functional, combination, etc.)

was not a concern to our team. Thus evolved our version of a “Presentation Resume”.

The following is a screen shot demonstates what is displayed on the opening resume screen in

our Talent Portfolio.

This screen shots demonstates a resume which did not make it into our Portfolio as it was

sumitted to us for review.

Which one of the above resumes clearly states to the prospective employer what skills you

have - quickly, concisely, and in less than 3 minutes? Which, one tells the employer “Next

Resume”?

Today’s technology can be a blessing but it also presents unique problems for the job seeker.

BounceBackSTL along with the Missouri Career Centers have hopefully overcome just one small

problem with our version of a “Presentation Resume”’.

“What is your Screen Presence”?

Frank Alaniz Functional Manager frank.alaniz@ded.mo.gov linkedin.com/in/frankalaniz